2:28:56

Sunday marked another milestone in my so-called "athletic career." While it's a career that's seen its share of ups and downs, I feel that it's on the way up once again. The peak of said career came in November of 2002 when I won a Wisconsin state soccer championship - not too shabby. Think I can top that with a complete marathon someday? I don't want to get ahead of myself, so let me back up to what happened this past weekend.

On Sunday I participated in the First Midwest Bank Southwest Half Marathon in Palos Heights, Illinois. My goal going into the race was just to NOT set a personal, slowest time. Back in August of 2009 I ran a 2:33:11 half marathon when I ran the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in downtown Chicago. I trained poorly and struggled for a majority of the race. In the weeks leading up to Sunday's race, I managed to destroy my back doing yard work for the future father in-law (which put me out of commission for almost a week), and I used my "winding down" week before the race to eat whatever my heart desired and only run one day.

Needless to say, I was slightly worried.

But once that gun sounded, my buddy Rick and I hit the road together. Even though I had an entire playlist set up to listen to as we ran, I pulled the earphones out after a couple miles and stuffed them in my pocket - deciding that I'd rather talk to and joke around with Rick. And that's what we just did - we talked with other runners, made jokes about roadkill and just did a great job keeping our minds occupied with things other than how bad our hammies were burning.

Unbeknownst to me, every time I would encounter someone I recognized (fellow runner or enthusiastic fan), my legs would magically move faster! Just seeing familiar faces was a nice break to the pothole-ridden pavement and half dead trees that I saw for the majority of the 13.1 miles. With a little under a mile to go, I turned to Rick and let him know that he was free to release the hounds and finish strong since my legs weren't moving too fast by the time the last mile rolled around. After he took off and I made my way closer to the finish line, the cheering from the crowd and seeing the huge "FINISH" banner stirred up some fire within me and I managed to "sprint" the rest of the way. (It felt like I was finishing quite strong, but it may not have actually happened that way.)

When all was said and done, I beat my worst time and finished at 2:28:56. As I assumed before we even started, my sister Erin smoked me by over 17 minutes. Maybe I'll get her next time :) From here, I plan to stay on task and ride the tidal wave of motivation into this month of May in hopes of chipping away at the number of pounds I want to lose before the wedding. Let's see how it goes!